Template:On this day - December 12

José de Echegaray

• 914 – In the Kingdom of León (present-day Spain), Ordoño II is acclaimed sovereign by the leading magnates, bishops, abbots and counts of León, gathered in general assembly.
• 1474 – Isabella the Catholic is proclaimed Queen of Castile and León in Segovia (present-day Spain).
• 1526 – Birth of Álvaro de Bazán, Spanish admiral, famous for never having been defeated (d. 1588).
• 1575 – In the state of Guanajuato (Viceroyalty of New Spain, present-day Mexico), the Viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almansa issues the edict ordering the founding of the future León de los Aldamas.
• 1584 – In Spain, the writer Miguel de Cervantes marries Catalina de Palacios.
• 1600 – Death of Luis de Molina, Spanish Jesuit, theologian and jurist (b. 1535).
• 1804 – Spain declares war on England under the treaties of San Ildefonso and Aranjuez with France.
• 1834 – In the course of the First Carlist War, the Battle of Mendaza is fought. The Isabeline general Luis Fernández de Córdova defeats Tomás de Zumalacárregui.
• 1840 – In Valencia (Spain), Queen Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies renounces the regency.
• 1903 – In Spain, the Congress approves the bill establishing the Sunday rest.
• 1904 – In Sweden, the playwright José de Echegaray obtains the first Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to a Spaniard.
• 1969 – In Western Sahara, the Harakat Tahrir (in English, Sahrawi National Liberation Movement), headed by Mohamed Sidi Brahim Basir, is officially constituted.
• 2010 – Death of Fernando Urdiales, Spanish theater director, playwright and physician (b. 1951).